Long term disease-free survival and T cell and antibody responses in women with high-risk Her2+ breast cancer following vaccination against Her2

Background  

The HER2-inhibiting antibody trastuzumab, in combination with chemotherapy, significantly improves survival of women with resected, HER2-overexpressing breast cancers, but is associated with toxicities including a risk of cardiomyopathy. Additionally, the beneficial effect of trastuzumab is expected to decrease once the drug is discontinued. We proposed to address these concerns by using cancer vaccines to stimulate HER2 intracellular domain (ICD)-specific T cell and antibody responses.     

Duration of immunity produced by a live attenuated vaccine against avian pneumovirus type C.

A recently developed live, attenuated vaccine against avian pneumovirus (APV) was found to be safe and protective in experimental birds. Duration of immunity following a single dose of this experimental vaccine in 1-week-old turkey poults is described. Two groups each of 60 poults were housed in separate isolation rooms. Birds in group one were inoculated oculonasally at 1 week of age with the vaccine. The second group served as a non-vaccinated group and was inoculated with mock-infected cell culture fluid. At 3, 7, 10, and 14 weeks post vaccination, 15 birds from each of the groups were removed to separate isolation rooms and challenged with virulent APV. Taken together, data on clinical signs and virus detection in choanal swabs following each challenge indicated that the vaccine was able to protect birds for up to 14 weeks post vaccination. Peak antibody levels were attained 7 weeks post vaccination and declined thereafter. These results indicated that this experimental vaccine induced protection against APV even in the absence of high antibody titres.     

Hepatocyte proliferative activity in human liver cirrhosis

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The objective of this study was to validate, with an independent prospective cohort of patients, our previous data indicating that the proliferating cell nuclear antigen-labeling index (PCNA-LI) reflects the liver functional reserve in human cirrhosis and might have prognostic significance for patient survival. We also examined how this proliferative index is related to the expression of transforming growth factor beta1 (TGFbeta1) as a possible correlate of hepatocyte proliferative activity. METHODS: The present group (n=70 patients) was similar in composition to our previous group regarding age, sex and severity of liver cirrhosis. PCNA and TGFbeta1 immunostaining were analyzed on methanol-fixed, paraffin-embedded liver biopsies. RESULTS: Our data show that PCNA-LI declined significantly with worsening Child class and was negatively correlated with the Pugh score. Twenty-five patients died and 10 underwent liver transplantation during the observation period. Liver function, hepatic venous pressure gradient and hepatocyte PCNA-LI were significantly different in survivors and non-survivors. At a mean follow-up of 356 days, the patients with a PCNA-LI higher than 4.4% (the previously determined best cut-off value) had a significantly higher probability of survival than those with a PCNA-LI < or = 4.4% (0.87 vs 0.48, p=0.0009). TGFbeta1 expression in liver parenchyma correlated negatively with PCNA-LI, suggesting that this cytokine could be involved in the impaired regeneration observed in worsened liver cirrhosis. CONCLUSIONS: This prospective study strengthens our previous observation that, in cirrhosis, hepatocyte proliferative activity, as evaluated by the PCNA-LI, provides information on liver functional reserve as well as on the patient's prognosis.     

Cholestatic jaundice due to congenital toxoplasma gondii infection

A case of congenital toxoplasmosis manifesting as hepatosplenomegaly and cholestatic jaundice in a 4 month old child is reported. To the best of our knowledge this is the first report of cholestatic jaundice due to congenital toxoplasmosis from India. The child was successfully treated with sulphadiazine and pyremethamine combination.     

An effective manual on breast self-examination

The effectiveness of a manual on breast self-examination was assessed in 190 female 11th- and 12th-grade students at a rural school in India's Haryana State. The students (average age, 16.6 years) completed a questionnaire on breast self-examination and related issues before they received copies of the manual and again 3 weeks after manual distribution. The pretested manual was culturally acceptable to both parents and teachers. At baseline, approximately 80% of the students had heard of breast cancer and over half believed it to be curable. Their principal sources of knowledge about breast cancer were television (38%), doctors (10%), friends and relatives (9%), and magazines (8%). On the baseline assessment, 8% of students achieved high scores, 83% obtained medium scores, and 9% had low scores. At retest 3 weeks after manual distribution, 79% achieved high scores and the remaining 21% had medium scores. Although knowledge of breast self-examination improved significantly, awareness of the structure of the breast and the increased risk of breast cancer in unmarried, childless women did not improve. A manual such as this can be used to educate young women about breast cancer prevention wherever there is a shortage of personnel trained to provide health education.     

Evaluation of ParaHITf strip test for diagnosis of malarial infection

This study sought to determine whether dip stick strip test containing antibody for Plasmodium falciparum histidine rich protein-II (PfHRP-II) antigen could be used for identification of P. falciparum and P. vivax malaria in man. The results obtained were also compared with the results of standard microscopic examination. A total of 150 cases were included for the study. Fifty cases were non-febrile cases with no history of malaria acting as control group and the rest 100 cases were having fever and formed the test group. All the cases in the control group was found to be negative for both microscopic examination and strip test. In the test group, all samples that showed positive for P. falciparum by microscopy was also found to be positive for strip test. Whereas, all those samples that were positive for P. vivax in microscopic examination was found to be negative for strip test indicating species specificity of the strip test. In addition, two other cases that were negative for microscopic examination were found to be positive for the strip test. Statistical analysis was done to compare the validity of the results of strip test with that of the results of microscopic examination.     

Current trends in tuberculosis vaccine

Despite the global efforts made to control tuberculosis (TB) and the large number of available new anti-TB drugs, TB still affects one-third of the world population. The conventional vaccine bacille Calmette–Guérin (BCG) shows varying efficacy in different populations, and there are safety issues in immunocompromised patients. Hence, there is an urgent requirement for a new and better TB vaccine candidate than BCG. There are several alternate vaccines available for TB such as DNA, subunit, adjuvant, and live-attenuated vaccines. Use of auxotrophic vaccine is an emerging technology. Newer vaccine technologies include vaccine delivery methods such as adenovirus- and cytomegalovirus (CMV)-based vector delivery, chimeric monoclonal antibody, single-chain fragment variable, RNA-lipoplexes, and nanoparticle-based technology. Based on its application, TB vaccines are classified as conventional, prophylactic, booster, therapeutic, and reinfection preventive vaccines. Currently, there are 12 vaccine candidates in clinical trials. In this review, we have briefly discussed about each of these vaccines in different phases of clinical trials. These vaccines should be analyzed further for developing a safe and more efficacious vaccine for TB.